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The Mesh

Why the Future of Business Is Sharing

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Overview

A simple, powerful idea that’s reinventing the way smart, adaptive companies do business.

Most businesses follow the same basic formula: create a product or service, sell it, and collect money. What Lisa Gansky calls “Mesh” businesses throw this model out the window. Instead, these companies use social media, wireless networks, and data crunched from every available source to provide people with goods and services at the exact moment they need them, without the burden and expense of owning them outright. The Mesh gives companies a better understanding of what customers really want.

Already, hundreds of successful Mesh companies are redefining how we interact with the people, goods, and services in our lives. These businesses are easier to start and spreading like wildfire, from bike sharing and home exchanges to peer-to-peer lending, energy cooperatives, and open source design. Consider:

The Mesh reveals the next wave of information-enabled commerce, showing readers how to plug in and profit.

Praise

“Lisa Gansky sees around corners and describes a future that seems impossible…until you realize that it’s imminent. The Mesh is a very big idea.” -Seth Godin

“Lisa Gansky makes a compelling case for the new competitive logic of sharing- and shows how to build not just a single company, but an entire business ecosystem, around this concept. If you want to understand the future, and maybe even help create it, read this book.” -Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind

“This is a brilliant, important book. Lisa Gansky has put her finger on one of the most important trends that will shape our culture over the next decades. She puts social media in a broader economic, cultural, and environmental context.” -Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media

“This book offers a timely introduction to the reality and importance of Mesh companies-ones that provide products and services through sharing, via community participation and a culture of trust-in a way that really matters.” -Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist

“Easy access to shared and personalized goods and services is going to be an integral and ubiquitous part of the new economy. Lisa has tapped into, explains, and explores this new phenomenon.” -Robin Chase, cofounder and founding CEO, Zipcar